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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656855">Calico Skies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor'>fairmanor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Schitt's Creek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Best Friends, Canon-Compliant, David Rose Deserves Nice Things, David and Twyla are Best Friends, Fluff, Food as a (platonic) love language, Friendship, M/M, Pansexual Twyla, Pure, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, platonic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:34:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Because right from the start, there was something about Twyla. Something that made him want to reach out. Something that made him escape into a world that, absurdly, looked rather like the one he was in.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>
    <br/>
    <em>***</em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p> <br/><em><br/><em>A story about marshmallows, letting your guard down, and David and Twyla being the purest of friends.</em></em><br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>David Rose &amp; Twyla Sands, Patrick Brewer/David Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Calico Skies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey! I really hope you enjoy this fic about what I think is quite an underrated friendship in the show. I wanted to add a bit to Twyla's character and deepen her interactions with David, so here we are.</p><p>I have lots of things to post, but college currently has me in a chokehold and I am drowning in work. I can't wait to get back into it, and hopefully posting this will reinvigorate me a little bit!</p><p>The title and divides in the story come from Paul McCartney's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysCzW7Nn8Zc">Calico Skies</a>, which I would recommend listening to! Relevant lyrics aside, it's a beautiful song.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> <em>I. From the moment I opened my eyes</em> </span>
</p><p>It’s an old trick of David’s to stare at his dead phone at social events.</p><p>Across the muddy, flattened lawn, he can see Alexis employing her own tactics, giggling and taking strategic selfies in a way that looks and feels wrong. If David weren’t in the same position as her, cold and uncomfortable and wanting to be in Davos or the Maldives, he would go as far as to say she looks ridiculous.</p><p>But he understands. He does, because he’s never felt more out of place here. So he stares at his dead phone and hopes no one bothers him, realising for the first time since the battery drained that he’s not even sure he packed his charger.</p><p>Something grabs his attention from the right. A clump of auburn and blue, wavering like everything else in the vicinity of this disgusting heat and bonfire.</p><p>There’s a woman just…staring at him. Staring <em>through</em> him, it feels like, with those loud blue eyes.</p><p>“I’m Twyla.”</p><p>David knows that already. She’d served them at the café yesterday. She called their situation <em>super crappy </em>and talked about prisons. She was wearing a shirt that looked practically similar but couldn’t be because this one was definitely lower quality, and there was an annoying thread hanging off the shoulder, and –</p><p>“From the café, yeah,” she continues, her voice sloshing to and fro on waves of alcohol. It snaps David’s attention away from her clothes and back onto her.</p><p>He’s never had someone introduce themselves like this before. So far, David Rose’s life has only ever accommodated for the kinds of introductions where some tall, willowy person will saunter up to him at an art show, look him up and down and inspect their nailbeds as they say, “Rene Magritte. Thoughts?”</p><p>It’s never this. It’s never someone staring up at him, intoxicated yet calm and patient, making him surprise himself by the way he repeats his own name back to her with little emphasis on the surname.</p><p>He’s not sure at all whether he would have kept talking to Twyla if Stevie hadn’t come over. It’s the most neutral interaction he’s had since he got here, that’s for sure.</p><p>As promised, Twyla goes to roast herself that marshmallow and David is sucked into the vortex of hinged truck flaps and brown-haired men in their 20’s with camouflage hats. There’s a tube thrust into his hand, which he grabs on an instinct that’s been maturing for fifteen years and shoves into his mouth.</p><p>It’s not the stiff drink Stevie promised – quite the opposite, actually, as it’s thin and greasy and leaves his mouth feeling sloppy for ages afterwards – but it’s good enough. There’s a buzz in the bridge of his nose that he’s going to pretend is from the Sandeman Cask port in his drinks cabinet that he never had a chance to open. And if he closes his ears and tunes out just enough, the ruckus around him kind of sounds like New York.</p><p>“David! David. D-David…”</p><p>He does a 360-degree spin trying to look for the noise, only to find that, yet again, Twyla is right in front of him. He shifts away on instinct and stumbles. She catches him by the wrist – considering her drunken state, she manages to do a pretty good job of it, too.</p><p>“You still want that marshmallow?”</p><p>David never actually said yes to the marshmallow. Maybe it’s the drink he’s had, but he finds himself following Twyla towards the firepit that most people have moved away from in order to make out or black out on the grass.</p><p>She hands him the plastic packet of jumbo marshmallows and David plucks one out, letting Twyla spear it with the stick.</p><p>“Th’last time I roasted a marshmallow must have been, I don’t know…five years ago?” Twyla rambles, twirling the little pillow of sugar round and round in the flames until it starts to turn golden-brown and bubble. “We have an annual bonfire and fireworks night in November, and me and a few of my friends heated ‘em over the gas cooker in the Café kitchen. They tasted a bit like fuel, but we liked them anyway.”</p><p>David’s surprised to find that he listened to all of that. “Mm. I can’t say I’ve ever roasted one myself. Always had someone else do it for me. Don’t like getting near the – the fire, I guess.”</p><p>At that, Twyla all but pushes him into her place. “Give it a go! Well, eat this one first. Then give it a go.”</p><p>And David does. He apologises to his sweater and eats the marshmallow in the way he likes, by peeling off the top layer and roasting it again and again until all the layers are gone. It’s sweet and creamy and warms him up a little, small though it is. He’d been feeling a little nutritionally devoid the past 48 hours with a lack of his usual blended kale and sundried tomato-and-charcoal bagels. Not that candy is going to help, but it’s a start.</p><p>“So, um, Twyla…” David says cautiously, because it still feels surreal that this is where he is, and these are the people he’s got to talk to. He sometimes thinks if he closes his eyes and doesn’t speak then fate will take pity on him and let him go back. “Twyla. Do you know of anything I can – I don’t know, do in this area?”</p><p>“Oh! Twyla exclaims, like she’s about to reel off a list of riveting and culturally nurturing activities that David will find tolerable at the least. “Um…no.”</p><p>David bristles and murmurs an okay. He’s about to turn away and leave when Twyla says, “You know, I really am sorry about what happened to you.”</p><p>David blinks. It’s still open, this wound. The purging of everything he thought was his. It hasn’t even scabbed over yet.</p><p>“O-oh. Okay. Thanks.”</p><p>He’s expecting an anecdote like yesterday, but it doesn’t come. Despite being drunk, her commiseration feels charged with the most sincerity he’s received since he got here. He’s done nothing but argue with this family and Stevie is ten barbs ahead of him at any given moment. This, in comparison, is…refreshing. A new start with a new person. Because Twyla doesn’t stare at his clothes, and she doesn’t seem to have noticed that he’s sometimes deliberately trying to be rude.</p><p>It’s –</p><p>Well, he can’t quite find the word yet.</p><p>He stands with Twyla a while more, quietly roasting marshmallows until he’s not sure how many he’s eaten. She doesn’t try to impress him, and he doesn’t try to impress her. And though David is nowhere near calm when he returns to the motel with Alexis, he realises once he’s laid down in bed that there’s actual breath in his lungs, filling him up in places he hasn’t thought about in a long time.</p><p>He forgets about it and stares at the ceiling until the sun comes up.</p><p>* * *</p><p>It takes about four weeks for David to realise that his family are, in fact, not going to get their money back. It takes him a little more to realise that there’s no one coming to get him, either. He’s not like Alexis. He doesn’t have a Jenna or a Liesha or a Klair. He doesn’t have people to lie to down the phone well past midnight. It’s started to become a bit entertaining, really, listening to Alexis spout bullshit to her friends about living in <em>this adorable ranch style in this little – Narnia town, or something.</em>  </p><p>So when he’s laid on Jocelyn’s back at partner’s yoga, <em>I’m pretty sure I’m really lonely here </em>is a lie. He’s very, very sure he’s lonely here.</p><p>And tired. God, so tired. He hasn’t had a proper nights’ sleep in a month. He can feel the lack of proper skincare wreaking havoc across his face.</p><p>At the end of the session, once Jocelyn has made enough of an exaggerated scene hobbling out while reassuring David that it really was fine that she fell asleep on her back (“Roland does it all the time!”), he’s one of the last ones left in the room. Alexis had not-so-subtly followed Mutt to wherever he went, so David is stood in the room alone with Twyla, who’s rolling up the mats. He picks up his mat and half-heartedly squishes the foam in the top corner.</p><p>“How do you feel after that, David?” Twyla says, taking the mat from him and rolling it up tightly.</p><p>“I – um, it was fine. I think.”</p><p>“You catch up on some sleep over there?”</p><p>David looks down, feeling his face flush hot, but then Twyla giggles. Actually <em>giggles, </em>like there are things that exist to giggle about.</p><p>“It’s okay, don’t worry about it! Sometimes that happens when people get so relaxed.”</p><p>“I’m not relaxed,” David says quickly.</p><p>“Oh.” The space between Twyla’s eyebrows crease into the smallest of frowns. “Are you still struggling here?”</p><p>David tries not to sigh aloud. That’s the other thing about Twyla; she’s so blunt. With her stories, her honesty about the food she serves, it’s all just there on the surface. David’s so painfully not used to it that it just doesn’t register. Like he’s been sat on his foot for years and years and now it’s numb, grey and staticky.</p><p>Even so, Twyla’s voice seems to get through to him more than other peoples’. It’s like everyone else is talking to him through water, but Twyla is right there with him. She knows how to get onto his level in a way that his family or Stevie still haven’t achieved.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I am.”</p><p>That’s why he follows her to the Café. David, still trying to recover his energy after the panic attack, tries not to notice that she’s slowing herself down for him.</p><p>Thankfully, there’s no one in. “Always quiet on a Monday night,” she says as David sits himself on the other side of the counter. He’s never been here before, always sitting in one of the booths with his family. He’s also never been in here alone.</p><p>Twyla flicks the switch on the coffee pot and leans onto the counter. “I’m glad you came along today, David. I know it’s probably hard to want to get out and do things.”</p><p>David nods slowly. “It’s hard to – yeah. Like you said.”</p><p>The coffee pot clicks and Twyla pours two cups. She brings hers to her face and breathes in the warmth as well as the drink, her shoulders rising with the breath.</p><p>It’s so calming, so familiar, that David finds himself opening up. “It’s hard to believe I’m here sometimes. I’ll wake up some mornings and it’ll be cold, and I’ll think, ‘Why hasn’t Cecilia put the heating on?’ And then I remember.”</p><p>Twyla smiles at him sympathetically. “It’s that moment of remembering that gets you the most, isn’t it? Where that little bit of your chest goes ‘oh, yeah. <em>That.</em>’”</p><p>David feels like he could cry. Maybe not now, <em>God, </em>not yet, but someday. He could potentially see himself crying in front of this person sometime soon, and he’s not entirely sure why.</p><p>Twyla takes a long sip of her coffee. “Anyway, if it might help, I’ve got to ask someone’s opinion on something. And you’re here, so…do you wanna come round the back for a second?”</p><p>David looks around the small room. “The back – the back where? Like a back alley?”</p><p>“No, the kitchen,” Twyla chuckles. “Sometimes George lets me play around with recipes and I wanted to see if these two are any good.”</p><p>And just like that, she’s gone, expecting David to follow. She doesn’t stop to acknowledge the fact that he looks like he hasn’t stepped foot in a kitchen in twenty years. (He hasn’t stepped foot in a kitchen in twenty years.) He was just there, so she said <em>you’re there, you can come and do this fun thing with me.</em></p><p>Somewhere from his seat to the kitchen, the last lingering tendrils of the panic attack dissipate into the air.</p><p>He hovers as Twyla whips up the first dish, garlic mashed potatoes. Her losing control of the blender and getting covered in the mixture earns David’s first laugh since he got here. The ache of his cheek muscles reminds him that it’s also his first laugh in a long time before that.</p><p>“Okay, I was gonna ask if I could have a bowl to try out of, but it looks like I’ll be scraping it off the floor instead,” he says. And Twyla laughs, loud and sun-yellow and bright.</p><p>He has a bowl of the mashed potatoes. They’re warm and soft and seasoned, and genuinely good. He tells her as much. It’s the kind of home cooking he grew up on thanks to Adelina.</p><p>“You know, we never really cooked much at all at home,” Twyla says as she clears the mess and utensils away. “My mom never learned, and money was tight for a couple of her weddings so we actually ordered Postmates to one of the ceremonies rather than hiring a caterer.”</p><p>David grimaces. “Yeah, our neighbours did something similar at their wedding. They didn’t wanna put a deposit down on their saffron and kopi coffee cake because the bookies had a 10-to-1 bet on them divorcing within two months.”</p><p>“Oh God, and did they?”</p><p>“Nope, it was one month,” David says. “I didn’t put a bet down ‘cause I was worried it would cost me a ticket to their annual Elvis Presley Deathday Pageant.”</p><p>The second dish is a s’mores pie. It takes a moment for David to remember what s’mores are, and that you could even make them into a pie. Twyla already had it pre-made in the fridge, so all there’s to do is put it in the oven. After around ten minutes and some idle chat that isn’t as painful as David has thought it would be, he catches a scent that takes him back to the all-boys theatre camp he attended when he was 12. He didn’t think you could make a pie out of chocolate and crushed graham crackers, didn’t think the marshmallows would squish together so comfortably on top and warm and melt into each other, but here they are. It smells gorgeous and it tastes even better.</p><p>He feels full for the first time when he goes ho– when he goes back to the motel. It’s not all there, nowhere even near halfway complete, but it’s a start. It’s a start when he notices that Twyla has stopped telling him the pointless stories she tells everyone else and started telling him the stories he can actually relate to. It’s a start when Twyla gives him extra helpings of food on the house. And when David notices that his eyes don’t look as sunken and his frame has filled out healthily, he thanks her. Not to her face, of course, and not even out loud. But he thanks her.</p><p>
  <span class="u"> <em>II. Never failing to fight at your side</em> </span>
</p><p>Two days after David comes back from the Amish farm, Twyla gives him her number.</p><p>“For if you ever need anything,” she says. “Anything at all, I mean it.”</p><p>About three hours later, David realises that he really, really needs a decaf herbal tea, so he texts Twyla to see if the Café is still open.</p><p><strong>Twyla: </strong><em>We close at 10, sorry! Thought you knew that lol </em>😉</p><p><strong>David: </strong> <em>damn it, nvm</em></p><p><strong>Twyla: </strong> <em>What did you want?</em></p><p>And David makes the mistake of telling her. Because five minutes later she sends him her location, and he makes the short walk in the near-midnight dark to her house, where she’s waiting at her kitchen table with two mugs of herbal tea. And it’s a mistake because David feels like he doesn’t deserve these constant, constant kindnesses, and he doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to say sorry for barging his way into her life.</p><p>“So you left, huh?” Twyla says, because somewhere in the past half-year they’ve reached an unspoken point where they can talk to each other like that. “How far were you planning on going?”</p><p>“I was living in New York before we came here,” he says. “I have big dreams. And a lot of friends left there.”</p><p>“You could call them up and invite them here!”</p><p>Halfway to taking a sip of tea, David almost burns his tongue when he splutters on it. “I – no, I couldn’t – they couldn’t see me here!”</p><p>Twyla gives him a knowing look and shrugs. “I know it would probably be odd, but it’s not the place they’re coming to see. It’s you!”</p><p>There’s a moment where David lets that sit in the air for a minute.</p><p>“They’d see you, right?” Twyla says. “Like…they’d want to see you?” Quieter.</p><p>There’s something about the way she says the word <em>see. </em>She doesn’t mean visit.</p><p>“No,” David whispers into his tea. “No, I don’t think they want to see me at all.”</p><p>There’s a backlog of emotions inside him he needs to get out. A dam that he started building up long, long before he came here. Things he can’t express in front of anyone.</p><p>Except…maybe. Maybe he can try.</p><p>The tears start to fall.</p><p>* * *</p><p>The Rose’s anniversary of being here comes and goes, and things start to fall somewhat into place. Throughout the lingering confusion with Stevie about their relationship, his family’s messy growing pains and struggling to adjust to his new job, Twyla remains a consistency. A refreshing purity in the town he thought would be his undoing.</p><p>They’re not all that similar when it comes to interests, but she makes the best small talk David’s ever had. Small talk with her feels deep, for some reason. It feels like it’s smoothing salve over the rawest parts of him. It doesn’t always fix everything right away, but the careful application over time is doing absolute wonders to heal him.</p><p>So they bond, in the quiet ways they know how. They text almost every night. They watch the sun come up on the warm, long days and listen to <em>Bright Eyes</em>. They’ve made it a little tradition to drink together on a Friday night. She gets more and more real with him, and he tells her about the messed-up baggage he took with him to Schitt’s Creek. All the loneliness he was forced to drag with him.</p><p>On the night of his parent’s anniversary, once his parents have wobbled home and Dolly Parton’s <em>I Will Always Love You </em>is drifting out gently from the barn, David finds himself sitting on the roof of it with Twyla. Why the fuck he ever decided to come up here has no idea, but he asked Twyla and Stevie to direct him to those townies they got their joint from and the rest is…well, it’s sitting on top of a barn.</p><p>“I saw you with <em>Jake </em>earlier,” Twyla says, her smile loose and goofy.</p><p>David snorts. “Oh! Oh, yeah. He kissed me.”</p><p>“Mm. And what was that like?”</p><p>David shrugs. It hadn’t been the best kiss in the world, but it was nice. And he likes Jake. Jake is hot. He has a feeling that things are going to hurt less from now on. Even if it ends in nothing, it’ll be a bit of fun at the least.</p><p>“It was good,” he says. “Feels like a fresh start.”</p><p>“I kissed Jake once when we were at Elmdale College,” Twyla says, lying back onto the roof. She takes a drag of the joint and passes it to David. He takes it without saying anything. “Well technically, <em>he</em> kissed <em>me</em>. And my girlfriend at the time saw and broke up with me, so that was pretty sad.”</p><p>“Wait, you had a girlfriend?”</p><p>“Mm-hm.”</p><p>David perks up a bit. It’s been a while since he’s met any other queer people here, let alone had a chance to talk about it. “So you’re…?” he says, waving his hand to let her fill in the blank if she wants.</p><p>“Pansexual,” Twyla says.</p><p>“Wait, what? Same! Same, Twyla,” he says, accidentally dropping the joint as he tugs her up by her wrist. She shrieks with laughter as she topples onto him. They high-five clumsily, then laugh at their own weirdness. He didn’t think he’d let anyone here but Stevie see the high version of him, but here he is.</p><p>They take a blurry selfie before Twyla staggers down from the roof, promising to be back with her “most favourite snack” (a tub of Strawberry Fluff). Though he’ll probably delete it in the morning, David posts the picture, then he realises that it’s the first post he’s made on Instagram since he got here. It’s not like the rest of them, all dark shadows and artful poses. It’s honest. It’s now.</p><p>He also realises that he needs this, what he has with Twyla. Stevie’s friendship is still the most important one to him here, but in his mind’s eye he sees them like the sun and moon.</p><p>Because right from the start, there was something about Twyla. Something that made him want to reach out. Something that made him escape into a world that, absurdly, looked rather like the one he was in. It was like she made him forget he spent most of his days reading books on his bed in a dingy motel room, and instead – well, instead realise that he did, in fact, spent most of his days reading books on his bed in a dingy motel room. But suddenly there was nothing sad about it at all. Suddenly it was a good thing to do.</p><p>He doesn’t delete the picture in the morning.</p><p>
  <span class="u"> <em>III. While the angels of love protect us</em> </span>
</p><p>David remembers when he used to close his eyes and not speak, hoping that fate would take pity on him and let him go back.</p><p>Now he knows better. He knows that fate is taking pity on him by letting him stay. And there was a word he couldn’t find, when he got here. For what all this is. Now he can.</p><p>It’s <em>nice.</em></p><p>These days, the town looks nice. The ideas for his new business are nice. He and Alexis are being nice to each other for once. His –</p><p>“Patrick is nice, isn’t he?” Twyla says one morning. David is grabbing himself a coffee while Twyla gives the tables a final clean before opening the Café.</p><p>David gets that little lurch in his stomach whenever he hears someone else say Patrick’s name. “Mm. Yeah, he is.”</p><p>There’s silence from behind him. He turns around to see Twyla staring at him with a wry smile on her face.</p><p>“What?” he says, but he can feel his own knowing smirk starting to creep up and betray him.</p><p>“You know what.”</p><p>David rolls his eyes. “Patrick is – he’s helping me out because it’s his <em>job, </em>Twy. He’s probably going to go and charm some other local business owner when he’s done wreaking havoc on my nerves.”</p><p><em>“Wreaking havoc on your nerves?</em> Who are you, Mrs. Bennet?”</p><p>“Shush, that’s not what I meant –”</p><p>“And you admit that he’s charming, hmm?” she grins, wiggling her shoulders in a way that reminds David of himself.</p><p>He turns back to the coffee station to hide his blush. “O-kay. Just for that, I’m taking this for free.”</p><p>“Ha, like your coffee hasn’t been on the house for months.”</p><p>Twyla looks towards the window and door before scooting over to the counter. “Just so you know, Patrick came in yesterday and ordered a tea with half a sugar and a croque monsieur. Then we got talking and he mentioned he likes breakfast early.” She winks at David, who just leans back with an indignant look.</p><p>“And you think this information would be helpful to me because…?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Just something to think about while you’re behind the counter,” she says innocently, before moving away to clean the rest of the tables.</p><p>David turns back around and pretends to ignore her. But when she opens the Café for the day and people start to trickle in, David leaves with two cups in his hands and the sandwich that Twyla heated up for him.</p><p>After that, David notices Twyla pushing him towards little gestures like that more often. Sometimes, she comes by with some food that all but forces David and Patrick to have a lunch break together. One day in late April, when there are boxes on the shop floor of actual product from actual vendors that David actually negotiated with – he’s still pinching himself about that one – the town is pushed through the last little bit of spring rain, and it comes down something fierce. There’s absolutely no way Patrick or David are going to go outside when it’s like this, and when the cold from outside starts to seep through the cracks they stick a space heater on the empty tabletop and put their jackets on as they work.</p><p>Before David can attempt any small talk, his phone pings:</p><p><strong>Twyla: </strong><em>just got a new order of hot chocolate and mini marshmallows in. If you want, I can stop by and bring you and Patrick a cup </em>😊</p><p>Before David has a chance to respond, Twyla’s sent him another text.</p><p><strong>Twyla: </strong> <em>Temperature just dropped again. I’m coming over.</em></p><p>David stiffens and deliberately says nothing as he waits for Twyla to cross the road and knock on the rattly window of the old store door, two cups of cocoa tucked as close to her person as possible.</p><p>Patrick makes a confused little noise, like he wasn’t planning on being disturbed, and moves to open the door.</p><p>“Hey, Twyla! What on earth are you doing out in this rain?”</p><p>“I just thought you might like something to warm you up!” she says with a practiced cheerfulness. David catches her eye and mouths <em>you’re dead. </em>She just smiles widely at him.</p><p>Patrick takes the two cups from her. “Thanks so much, that’s really sweet. I was gonna ask David if we should have a break anyway, so this saves the trip.”</p><p>Twyla shrugs. “Anything I can do to make your day easier. I hope the rest of the unpacking goes well!”</p><p>Once she’s gone – and David could have sworn she gave him the tiniest of salutes when she left – Patrick looks at David with a little smile on his face, and hands him one of the cups.</p><p>“I’m glad I didn’t go out and get drinks,” Patrick says. “I’m pretty sure I would have got your coffee order wrong.”</p><p>“Mm, I’m glad you didn’t too. You’re already aware of my three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on coworkers buying me drinks.”</p><p>They sit down on adjacent sides of one of the corners of the middle table. The space heater is warm and comforting, not at all likely to parch David’s skin like the horrible one Stevie sometimes puts in their room at the motel when she needs to dry some of the damp off the walls.</p><p>David cracks the lid open and is greeted by a warm, sweet drink with a mountain of whipped cream on top.</p><p>“Wait, where’s the marshmallows?” he says.</p><p>Patrick hums as he takes a sip. “On the bottom, below the cream. That’s the only way to do it.”</p><p>“Um, no it’s not,” David scoffs. “It’s hot chocolate, then whipped cream, then mini marshmallows, then chocolate powder.”</p><p>“Who taught you <em>that? </em>The marshmallows won’t melt if they’re on top.” Patrick scoops a bit of his cream to the side to show David the marshmallows, which have melted into a gooey barrier on the surface of the cocoa. “Look, they’re all safe and happy there.”</p><p>David rolls his eyes. It’s a precautionary measure. He thinks he would have disintegrated into a puddle otherwise. He’s just so damn <em>cute. </em></p><p>“Oh, they’re <em>safe and happy,” </em>he mimics, immediately regretting it when Patrick flicks the remaining cream on his finger onto David’s nose. “Hey! That’s – get it off, that’s horrible.”</p><p>Patrick takes another drink. “Leave it on there. It completes your whole look. Even goes with your colour scheme.”</p><p>David just pulls a face at him before he rubs it off and starts drinking his cocoa. He won’t admit it, but Patrick’s right. They’re better this way, protected in between the warm liquid and cold cream.</p><p>There’s a pleasant silence for a while as they both wrap their hands round their cups and watch the rain pummel the concrete outside.  </p><p>“So is that what we are now?” David says, hearkening back to something he’d said just before they sat down. “Coworkers?”</p><p>“I…actually, this was something I wanted to talk about earlier, but I couldn’t find the time,” Patrick says.</p><p>And before David’s stomach even has a chance to drop, Patrick actually looks like he’s blushing. Then, what is probably the most adorable smile David has ever seen crosses Patrick’s face.</p><p>“I meant it when I said I think you have something here, David,” he continues. “And if it’s alright with you, I’d really like to stick around here for much longer than opening day.”</p><p>David’s heart is fluttering out of rhythm now. He looks outside, and suddenly the rain doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. He thinks about it getting his hair wet, and isn’t nearly as horrified as he usually is when something like that crosses his mind. The heat in this room is perfect, Patrick is going to stay, and David feels…<em>safe.</em></p><p>“I’d like that,” David whispers. “I’d like that a lot.”</p><p>Patrick smiles again, wider this time. David’s swinging his foot back and forth to relieve a little of the energy humming directly beneath his skin.</p><p>And then something odd happens. They’re not making eye contact at the time, so David has absolutely no idea about the intent, but he swears that Patrick catches David’s ankle with his foot and just holds them there for a second, hooked together. Patrick presses into the hold lightly with his toe before pulling away, and David has to drain half of his cup to stop from smiling. Or screaming. Or both.</p><p>As their conversation lulls into something more mundane, David shoots a quick text to Twyla.</p><p><strong>David: </strong> <em>oh my god I owe you</em></p><p>When the rain calms down and he peers through the store window, she’s sat in the Café windowsill with her chin resting on her arms. He thinks he can see her smile from here.</p><p>It continues rather like that for a while. Twyla pops into the store often, both before and after it’s officially open, and almost always has something for them to share. Stevie gets more of the details, but he knows she’d laugh at him if he ever asked her to back him up or casually say something that made him look good in Patrick’s vicinity. With Twyla, he gets to experience this giddiness he never had before. New York was a soup of charged glances across crowded rooms and hangovers with the disinterested. It was cold linoleum and overused mechanics and it was boring, boring, <em>boring.</em></p><p>But when Patrick makes his joke about trying the Café Tropical, knowing full well they’ve had lunch from there every day for the past few months, the laugh David feels inside is warm. And the Café is warm, and as gaudy as the décor is it’s definitely starting to grow on him. And to his surprise, he’s not bored of it yet. Though he’s probably tried everything on the menu twice, he’s not bored at all. He actually found himself looking forward to eating something for dinner the other day, which very much took him by surprise.</p><p>The road in between the store and the Café is cradling little pieces of his rebirth. And in David’s mind, it’s his and Twyla’s space. The store is his, the Café is hers, and this part of the town is theirs.</p><p>With Twyla as his friend, he feels like a teenager again. He feels young. He <em>is</em> young. And for the first time in a long time, he’s allowed to be.</p><p>
  <span class="u"> <em>IV. From the innermost secrets we hide</em> </span>
</p><p>David and Twyla have often remarked that they’re rather like opposite ends of a seesaw. Mainly because whenever things seem to be looking up for one, they go south for the other. When Twyla’s schedule is getting the better of her, David has news about his most recent date with Patrick. When David is feeling worn down by his family’s energy, Twyla is buzzing about an out-of-town Jazzagals concert at a surprisingly large venue.</p><p>Sometimes, it’s more than that. Sometimes David will sneak into the Café to scare Twyla, only to find her on the phone with tears streaming down her face, pleading “Mom, it’s <em>me. </em>How do you not recognise my voice?”</p><p>Sometimes, it’s more than that. Sometimes Patrick’s ex-fiancée comes to town and David’s heart gets mashed up like wet paper and balled to the ground.</p><p>After Stevie finally manages to get him out of bed and he resets himself with a little of her tough love at the spa, David spends the remainder of the mornings that week at the Café. After he started to come in before opening more and more, Twyla gave him a key on the condition that he wouldn’t use it every single day. More than once he’s opened the door and practically flung himself into the room, complaining or gushing about something. Because most days, he finds that he really needs Twyla to hype him up or commiserate with him.</p><p>Today, he’s here because life is being deeply, soul-crushingly, hellishly cruel right now, and David just wants it to feel <em>super crappy </em>again.</p><p>“Tomorrow,” he says firmly once he’s sat at the breakfast bar with a cup of coffee. “Stevie says I should go into work tomorrow.”</p><p>“And? Are you going to?”</p><p>David takes a deep breath through his nose and drops his chin into his hands. “Mm-hm. I might.”</p><p>“Good! I’ve missed you on your lunch breaks.” Twyla throws a tea towel over her shoulder and leans across the counter. “And I’ve also missed Patrick’s smile a bit, too.”</p><p>David’s gut twists, but he tries to feign nonchalance. “Is he – you know, does he seem…okay?”</p><p>“O-ho, no,” Twyla says with a mirthless laugh. “I don’t want to stir the pot here, but I’ve never seen him so low.”</p><p>“You didn’t give him any shit for it, did you?”</p><p>“Gosh, no!” Twyla says, gasping as though she’s outraged that he’d even suggest it. “I would <em>never. </em>Everyone has their reasons. Everyone has their stories.” There’s a pause, where Twyla silently communicates that the ball is in David’s court. He looks up at her bashfully and she taps a finger against the back of his hand. “Maybe it’s time you found out what they are.”</p><p>“Have you ever been in a situation like this before?” David asks.</p><p>“Hm. I think I’ve played every part a couple of times.”</p><p>“Anything you want to share?”</p><p>David’s grown used to hearing Twyla’s stories now. More than once, he’s mentioned her to someone and had them reply, “is that Twyla with the messed-up family?”</p><p>Twyla looks at him, her lips scrunched into a pout, and shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to spoil anything.”</p><p>“Spoil anything? Twy, my relationship is in tatters. What could you possibly spoil?”</p><p>“I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s always helpful to talk about all the things that happen to me,” she sighs. “Sometimes it just makes things worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if people thought I was a big weirdo because of it.”</p><p>There’s something telling David she wants to talk about it, so he stays quiet and lets her continue.</p><p>“It’s like a default that I can’t get out of now,” she continues, pouring herself a cup of tea. “All these things I come out with...I don’t know, it’s like a mask. Like me coping with it all. I think if I talk about my family, then it makes me forget about how much <em>I </em>can relate to their situation.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>Twyla sighs deeply. “You know, I once hurt someone the same way Patrick hurt you.”</p><p>David blinks at her. “Wha– what? <em>You?”</em></p><p>“Yes, me,” Twyla says, with the air of someone who sometimes gets a little bit tired of themselves. It makes David’s heart ache. “I spent the whole relationship keeping things about myself from them, thinking it was for the best. In the end it got very messy, and we both ended up all kinds of hurt and embarrassed and sad.”</p><p>It’s not the story David expected her to tell. Usually she picks one that David can relate to, not one he has to think his way around.</p><p>“But after I apologised, they wouldn’t have it. And by the time we’d spent months apart and they got back in touch claiming they finally saw it from my point of view, well…I’d already left town. I was with someone new.”</p><p>“Oh, God.”</p><p>That’s a hell of a lot blunter than he was expecting. Yet she’s not telling him off. She’s not saying <em>this is going to be you</em>. She’s saying <em>you can have better than this. You’re better than this.</em></p><p>And if the best person he knows thinks that he’s better than this, then he supposes he just has to believe it.</p><p>Like she said. Everyone has their reasons. Everyone has their stories.</p><p>“I’m going to have to talk to him,” David says. “Okay, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going in tomorrow.”</p><p>“I thought you already said you might go in tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yeah, ‘might’ is always a lie,” David says.</p><p>Twyla gives him a small smile. Then, with a small “hey, come here,” she gets out from behind the counter and brings David into a hug. He stiffens at first, but finds himself leaning into it. She readjusts her grip and he brings his arms firm around her waist. They both need it, he thinks.</p><p>“Thanks, Twyla,” he says quietly, his voice a small, wet sound.</p><p>“Anytime,” she says. “Anytime, David. You know I’ll be here for you through thick and thin.”</p><p>* * *</p><p>And life after that, for both of them, is blessedly thin. (Or thick. David never worked out which part of the metaphor was meant to be the good thing.)</p><p>Either way, the rest of the year runs incredibly smoothly and David feels more fulfilled than he has in a long time. So thick <em>and </em>thin, really, are playing their parts. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more in place, more solidly grounded, than he does right now.</p><p>For once, he and Twyla aren’t stuck on that perpetual back-and-forth; for once, things are smooth. They’re boring in the best kind of way where things aren’t boring at all. Where sitting in silence with Patrick makes David strangely weepy. <em>That </em>kind of boring.</p><p>They hold a second open mic night at the Apothecary and decide to make it a seasonal thing. David makes Twyla promise she won’t sing anything he can relate to – he doesn’t think he can deal with more than one load of unsolicited emotions in one night, what with Patrick’s usual choice of something sure to make David cry into his shirt later – but she gets up and sings <em>First Day of my Life </em>anyway, and David is taken right back to them sitting on the curb outside the Café listening to the album in a time when it felt like there was nothing here for him at all.</p><p>Yet here’s one of his best friends, stood on the stage, singing to him in a way that says, <em>look what we made. I’m proud of you.</em></p><p>The day after the whole town came to celebrate Christmas in the motel, David and Alexis are interrupted in the morning with a knock on the door.</p><p>“Who is that? I thought Patrick wasn’t coming by until later,” Alexis says absent-mindedly, not taking her eyes off the black and white movie playing on TV.</p><p>David swings his legs off his bed and moves toward the door. When he swings it open Twyla is stood there, bundled up in her knits and carrying a big open-topped box.</p><p>“Twyla?”</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” she grins.</p><p>“Oh my God, Twy!” Alexis jumps off the bed and hops up and down as Twyla gets herself through the door, crushing her in a hug once she’s put the box down.</p><p>“Last night David mentioned that you wouldn’t be going anywhere today, so I brought some bits and pieces over for a Christmas breakfast!”</p><p>David peers into the box. There are packets of brioche, oranges, maple bacon, pancake mix, and bottles of syrup. He feels like he could cry.</p><p>“I noticed you have a bit of a kitchen when I was in your parent’s room yesterday, so I thought this would be nice,” she says, bending down to take out some of the food.</p><p>“Twy!” Alexis sing-songs, pouting as she watches Twyla empty the box. “You’re just the sweetest little thing.” When she flounces off to go tell Johnny and Moira, Twyla picks up a smaller package, wrapped with a little bow.</p><p>“I didn’t wanna risk getting you anything you’d have to fake a reaction to. I know you a little better than that. And I know it’s not much, but…at least I know you’ll enjoy it.”</p><p>David takes the little parcel and unwraps the bow. Inside is a little edible snowman; three marshmallows stacked on top of each other, with chocolate stick arms and gumdrop buttons.</p><p>She laughs as he opens it, and he does too. But then again, it’s also unironically the best Christmas present he thinks he’s ever gotten.</p><p>“Thank you, Twy,” he whispers.</p><p>And he might be a while away from saying it, but he knows then that he loves her.</p><p>
  <span class="u"> <em>V. I’ll hold you for the rest of your life</em> </span>
</p><p>David doesn’t believe in fate anymore.</p><p>There’s something that’s been waking up inside him for a long time, and he never really understood it until he fully leaned back into the daily routine of going to the store, having lunch at the Café, and going to Patrick’s apartment every other night. The feeling of walking through a town he’s made his own did away with his idea of fate long ago. If this story was written for him by the edges of the universe, then he doesn’t think he’d want it. He’s too proud of it. It’s <em>his.</em></p><p>He and Twyla still get drinks every Friday night. When the weather’s warm, they go for walks around the quieter, greener parts of town, Twyla’s arm linked with David’s as they stroll and gossip in the early evening sun. David has no idea how she managed to get him to do it, but on April Fool’s Day they swap positions at the store and the Café and refuse to acknowledge it to anyone to asks. (They both quickly learn that they much prefer their own respective retail endeavours.) In the weeks after Patrick’s housewarming party, he sometimes comes home to find David and Twyla cackling about something on the couch, wine in hand, having let themselves in after a long day of work.</p><p>When David texts her a close-up picture of his engagement rings the night after Patrick proposes, she sends him a picture of her tarot cards. The black and white party, the ring of golden light.</p><p><strong>Twyla: </strong><em>Knew it. </em>😉</p><p>And she sings at his wedding. She <em>sings at his wedding.</em></p><p>Even now, David still doesn’t have a word for how it felt to see his mom, Patrick, Stevie, and Twyla waiting for him somewhere at the other end of the aisle. He doesn’t suppose he ever will.</p><p>The day after their wedding reception, hosted in the Café and decorated rather similarly to the town hall, Roland and Jocelyn propose an impromptu fireworks night as a farewell for Johnny and Moira. They might not be there to see it, but…well, they are, in a way.</p><p>They’re standing in the centre of the town in the pitch black. Patrick’s left hand is on David’s lower back, his right laced through one of David’s. The sky is a riot of gold and silver and rose-red, and David can feel the tears on his cheeks drying with the heat of the bonfire in the nearest field.</p><p>Alexis is looking at the field with something like indignant shock on her face. “Um, if someone told me in advance that this was going to turn into a tailgate party, I would have worn better shoes.”</p><p>David looks at the bonfire, where Roland and Ronnie are setting up a makeshift conveyor of barbecue food. Soon, everyone will be making a beeline for it.</p><p>As the fireworks peter out into the occasional burst, everyone makes their way to the field. It suddenly strikes David to take a picture of the setup for his parents, but when he gets his phone out he realises it’s dead. He pockets it again and makes his way to the centre of the field, his attention grabbed on the way by two teenage girls who want to look at his gold rings.</p><p>The night is just the right side of cold, and David takes in a deep breath as the music plays and the calming smell of smoke starts to fill the air. He’s had five hotdogs and perhaps one too many drinks, so he’s pacing himself with a Coke. Patrick has gone to talk to some of his baseball friends, so David’s perched by himself on the back of someone’s open trailer flap, sipping from the warm glass bottle.</p><p>Suddenly, from his right, a clump of auburn and blue. Wavering like everything else in the vicinity of the heat and the bonfire.</p><p>Twyla smiles at him, hops up to sit next to him, and gives him something from her right hand. Her left is holding her own marshmallow, dark brown and crispy, and now David has one, too.</p><p>“Thought you might fancy a marshmallow,” she says, peeling off the top layer and eating it just like David does.</p><p>And David realises, with a disproportionate intensity of emotion, that he’s never actually said “yes” outright to anything Twyla’s given him. It’s just that he would never dream of saying no.</p><p>Not when his heart has always needed it that badly.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! Kudos &amp; comments do a happy writer make :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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